[Solved] Shared folder not working on CentOS and RHEL guests (#17221)

[TheITGUY]

I have an issue on RHEL and Centos but reboots of neither of the guests or the Windows host help.

• Version:        VirtualBox 5.1.16       
  Problem on:     Centos & RHEL 7 guests
  Host type:      Windows
  Works well on: Solaris 11 and Oracle Linux 7 guests.

I submitted a ticket for this issue but advised to post it here instead: Ticket #17221.

Basically I am trying to mount a shared folder on Centos & RHEL guests:

• # mount -t vboxsf sharedfolder /hostfiles/ 
  /sbin/mount.vboxsf: mounting failed with the error: No such device

but works like a dream on Solaris & Oracle Linux virtual boxes.

Please note the the virtual guest addition is installed on all boxes and on Centos/RHEL by running: VBoxLinuxAdditions.run. This is evident by the fact that the mount command recognizes the vboxsf file system type. Prior to installation I tested the command and the error was different. Then the error was about FS type being invalid.

Host is a Windows 7 Machine and Virtual box is 5.1.16. Centos is:

• # uname -a
  Linux centos 3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64 #1 SMP Tue Aug 22 21:09:27 UTC 2017 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
  # cat /etc/system-release
  CentOS Linux release 7.4.1708 (Core)

I have tried comparing sotruss and strace outputs but nothing apparent there!

I thought about seLinux stuff but if so the error does not seem to indicate any issues.
I think it is the way the name of the shared folder is interpreted by Guest Addition packages.
Somehow, Oracle Solaris and Linux interpret it right but the other boxes mix it up.

[socratis]

First of all thanks for including the ticket number in your post. But, I split your post from another thread that was already marked as [Solved]. It's not a good idea to reply to an existing thread that's marked as [Solved], especially if you are coming from a ticket, it confuses the situation. I split your post from the other thread and I included the ticket # in the title for easier identification...

VirtualBox is 5.1.16.

Your VirtualBox version is an old one. You should upgrade to either the latest of the 5.1.x series, or the newly released 5.2.x series. If you install the 5.2.0 version, I would suggest to install the latest Development Snapshot (at the bottom of the page) since the 5.2.0 release has some slight issues with the Linux guest additions, something that has already been fixed in the Development Snapshots.

[TheITGUY]

Hi Socrates,

I finally managed to have this working both on Centos 7 and RHeL 7.

You were right I needed a recent update. I have Version 5.2.0 r118431 (Qt5.6.2) on Windows 10 now.

I also needed to do a few more things as well. I had to ensure the following packages were installed and up-to-date also or else VBoxLinuxAdditions.run would fail, complaining about them:

- kernel-devel
- kernel-devel-3.10.0-693.el7.x86_64

Also make sure perl, gcc and make are installed and working properly.

Good thing is now bidirectional clipboard is also working.

[socratis]

Great, thanks for the feedback. Marking as [Solved].